You Think Thailand Is A Basket Case?

[Bangkok Barry]

If you think Thailanb is alone in wierd goings-on, in which chaos and incompetence reign, then read this story from the UK's Daily Telegraph.....

Prison with a holiday camp regime

Her Majesty's Prison Ford, aka HMP Butlins, has not enjoyed a good press in recent years.

Though its education and resettlement work has won praise, the prison, near Arundel, West Sussex, has found it hard to live down a reputation as one of the Prison Service's cushiest establishments.

Even without a list of celebrity "old boys" that includes George Best, Lord Brocket and Ernest Saunders, the Category D prison has seen a string of incidents that has produced lurid headlines.

In 2003, it was revealed that inmates were popping out for a stroll down the River Arun to stock up with booze and smoked salmon at a local Tesco.

That was a year after Ford - which straddles a main road, with admin, workshops and farms on one side, and accommodation and education blocks on the other - suffered the indignity of a break-in, when burglars took mobile phones and tools.

There was an outcry this year over the fact that David McGreavy, a triple child killer dubbed the Monster of Worcester, had been allowed to go on unescorted trips.

Learco Chindamo, the former teenage hoodlum who stabbed to death the headmaster Philip Lawrence, has also been allowed out on day trips from the prison despite being jailed for life 10 years ago, with a minimum sentence of 12 years. Other inmates have served their time by getting full-time jobs - and full-time wages - working as bus drivers.

On average, two prisoners a week abscond and the prison has one of the worst records in Britain for keeping track of its inmates, with almost 10 per cent walking out and never being seen again.

One of the more embarrassing incidents involved the con man Anthony Passmore. Two months after he received a six-year sentence for fraud, City of London detectives arrived at the jail to ask him about millions of pounds they hoped to recover.

It was only then that they discovered Passmore had gone, never to be seen again.

.......................... takes some beating, doesn't it.

[ThaiPauly]